


Excuse Me?

by TGP



Series: Eyesight [7]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/F, Genderqueer bashing, Genderqueer!Harry, Polyamory, Potter sass, Pregnancy, Reporters being sensationalists
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-13
Updated: 2014-11-13
Packaged: 2018-02-25 07:01:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,459
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2612594
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TGP/pseuds/TGP
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Harry blurts spectacularly and makes a bad situation kind of a lot worse.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Excuse Me?

“Now, Miss Potter-”   
  
“Mister, actually.”

The interviewer gives him a look, eyes shifting down to Harry’s round belly and filling chest. It’s a look Harry understands and is familiar with, and not one he respects in the least. Harry returns her gaze with steely resolve. He has been fighting this fight for two years now (when he decided to go ahead and get his sex fixed in the Ministry records) and he will continue to do so because he spent too long being treated like a man to suddenly accept being treated like a woman, especially when both were wrong.   
  
“Mister Potter,” the interviewer says and her voice shows how little she thinks of Harry’s life choices. It takes her a moment to gather herself again. “How far along are you?”   
  
“Eight months.”   
  
“Not long now.”   
  
“No.”   
  
“Have you chosen a name?”   
  
Harry glances at his watch. They’re ten minutes into this interview. It was supposed to be on the new non-human rights reform Hermione has been working on that Harry has been very vocal about, but there hasn’t been a word about that. He looks back at her. “No.”   
  
“Waiting until the last moment, I know a few mothers like that,” she says, smiling. Her smile is pinched and fake.    
  
“Father, actually.”   
  
“Oh don’t be silly!” the woman finally explodes, rolling her eyes with great exaggeration. “Miss Potter-”   
  
“It’s mister.”   
  
“You can’t honestly imagine that the Wizarding World will just roll over and let you do whatever you wish even if you are the Girl-Who-Lived-”   
  
“Pretty sure that’s Boy-Who-Didn’t-Die-Conveniently.”   
  
“-Playing willy nilly with gender roles as if they were clothes you can put on and take off-”   
  
“More like hats, I think. Tacky ones.”   
  
“-As if there weren’t fundamentally fine reasons to have them- _you’re not even married!_ ”   
  
“Didn’t realize that was illegal.”   
  
“Do you even know who the father is?!”   
  
Harry gives her a very patient look. “I am.”   
  
“You _know_ what I mean.”   
  
“I know what you _said_.”   
  
The interviewer narrows her eyes so far that Harry can almost not see them at all. He stares back at her, refusing to be embarrassed or cowed. Not about this. He watches her take a few deeper breaths to calm herself, try to get some semblance of dignity back. It’s a good thing this isn’t being televised, but he’s sure the newspaper article will be scathing and not a bit about the reforms.   
  
“How are things with Miss Weasley?” she asks finally, shuffling her notes without looking at him.   
  
“Fine.” When she waits, like she’s expecting more, he adds, “She’s busy with the games, of course.”   
  
“Of course. Not a lot of time at home, no wonder you wandered.”   
  
Harry pauses and really looks and sees her lips quirk nastily. He makes a decision.    
  
“It’s not wandering in a polyamorous relationship,” he says bluntly and hopes his lovers aren’t too angry that he let the cat out of the bag without consulting them first, but he is not going to let anyone say things about Ginny’s devotion to him.    
  
The woman stares at him, mouth fallen open. “P- pol...”   
  
“Polyamory,” he prompts.    
  
And then she _loses_ it. 

\---

  
“Is there a reason you’re hiding out under my desk?” Hermione asks with vague amusement.    
  
Harry’s only been there a few minutes. After he’d escaped the interview from hell (after he had been dressed down by the increasingly hysterical woman who took jabs at everything she could think of, including and not limited to his dangerous job, his meager pay, his unsuitable home, the emotional and mental damage he would do exposing his child to such depravities, how confusing it would be, and at one point she’d even said he should had dropped with Voldemort) Harry had sent a message to Ginny to warn her about the fall out since she was the only person the public knew to be involved with him, and then he’d come to carefully wedge himself in the safest small space he could, which just happened to be Hermione’s desk. He’s pretty sure he won’t be getting up off the floor without help.   
  
“Not really,” he says but Hermione’s already sliding down to the floor next to him, a fleshy wall against the too big, too loud world outside. Harry relaxes a little and rests his head on his shoulder, rolling his eyes up to look at her.    
  
“Shall I tell you about the Centaur clause I finished drafting this morning?”    
  
He nods and then listens as Hermione outlines the clause in precise, careful language that he listens to without really keeping any of it, but he knows she won’t mind. Her voice is soft in his ears and he can feel the warmth of her body, comfortably hemming him in. It would be better if she had her hands on him. Why _doesn’t_ she?   
  
Harry reaches out and cups his hand to Hermione’s cheek, drawing her close enough so he can awkwardly lean and kiss her. Pregnancy has made him even clumsier than he was before, the way he can’t bend right anymore or twist, and there’s the belly-   
  
It’s better when Hermione sets her hands on the floor and shifts onto her knees so she can lean into him, let him settle more comfortably while she licks into his mouth and chases his tongue and is so perfect.    
  
“Can we go home now?” Harry asks against her lips and Hermione laughs a little and gives his cheek a peck. “No, really. We could go home and I’ll undress you slow and- well, it won’t be like before much, I can’t exactly- well maybe I could kneel okay-”   
  
“Harry.”   
  
“Maybe if I sat against the wall and you leaned over me, then I could eat-”   
  
“ _Harry!_ ” Her face has gone crimson, but he knows she’s not opposed to the idea (he did it a month ago, before the baby suddenly doubled in size, or at least seemed like it had) and she’s more amused by him than anything. “Didn’t go so well?”   
Harry sighs and thumps his head back against the side of the desk. “No. She didn’t ask about the reform at all.”   
  
“What? That was the whole _point_.”   
  
“She asked me about the baby. And Ginny. And then accused me of cheating.”   
  
Hermione stares at him, face filling with offense. Harry hesitates and then adds more quietly, “She kept calling me _miss_.”   
  
Her lips press into a tight line. She gets up and then starts helping Harry out from under the desk and back to his feet. It’s a slow process these days, fat as he is with the baby. The moment he’s steady, she drags him into her arms tight. And... And it’s stupid, how different it feels around the bump. How everything is different now that there’s a baby coming. And he is so very stupidly upset over something that he’d normally just let slide.    
  
“I’m calling Draco,” Hermione says soothingly, patting his back. “We’re suing the pants off that woman.”   
  
He finds himself letting out a wet laugh. “You think he’d do that?”   
  
“He owes you. And me, for that matter. I don’t mind dropping a favor for this. That is absolutely vile. We can throw in one of Molly’s cakes to sweeten the deal. You know how he gobbled the one at Christmas.”   
  
Harry remembers. They can’t get Draco to come to many of the family holidays, something about the guilt he doesn’t let go of and passes off as being a pureblood asshole, but sometimes he shows and sometimes they show him that he does have friends who aren’t chummy with him to get something in return.   
  
Except when they are, but Hermione’s right. Draco owes him. And maybe Draco will know how to spin this in the press to keep it getting too crazy. They’re friends. He’ll probably be willing.    
  
“Maybe,” Harry says and Hermione knows she’s already won, he doesn’t even have to look at her face to know that.    
  
Together, they fetch the desk work Harry has waiting on him since he certainly can’t go out on the field this way and Harry works on it the rest of the afternoon in Hermione’s office while she works on the Centaur clause of the reform bill. They leave together that evening and when Ron gets home, Harry makes him rub his feet. He sleeps between them.   
  
Ginny thanks him for the warning and declines the invitation to come home to deal with the fall out because “I’m a big girl, Harry. I wipe my own ass and everything.”    
  
And the fall out is pretty stupendous, but they all lean on each other and by the time James is born, they’ve figured out how to handle it. 

**Author's Note:**

> I tend to work on this story (and others) while I'm at work and post bits of it on http://tgp-the-loser.livejournal.com/ if anyone is interested in watching the story grow before it gets posted. Or just wants to ask questions or prompt anything. :)


End file.
